Rochester Fair Ambassador Joel Sherburne gives human scale to this year’s winning giant pumpkin, a 796-pounder grown by Al Berard of Sanford, Maine. Cold, wet weather in July decimated this year’s entries, which were down to a mere two. (John Nolan/Times photo)

ROCHESTER — The 138th Rochester Fair is packed with attractions, and giant pumpkins are always an exciting spectacle — but this year, not so much!

In the recent past, winning specimens on display in the Exhibition Hall have topped 1,300 pounds, but in 2013, the champion pumpkin has weighed in at a mere 796 pounds, according Rochester Fair General Manager Mark Perry. The owner of this year’s top pumpkin and the winner of the first prize of $600, is Al Berard of Sanford, Maine, a highly respected grower whose past entries have been well over the 1,000-pound mark. The only other entry, which was under 300 pounds, was still enough to win Steve Ellis of Alton $400.

The big problem for giant pumpkin growers this year was a prolonged spell of cold, rainy weather in July, according to greater Rochester’s best known grower, Hiram Watson of Meaderboro Road in Farmington.

“I had a couple of 400 pounders in July that were putting on 30 pounds a day. Then the cold spell hit,” said Watson, explaining that when the plants’ roots become waterlogged, the vines come under great stress and “abort their pumpkins,” which, in essence means that they stop growing, mature and rot.

“Then I haul them to the compost pile,” said Watson, philosophically. Three years ago, he captured the Rochester Fair all-time record with a pumpkin weighing 1,287 pounds, and the same weigh-in day, won a contest in Sanford, that included his friend Berard, with a specimen tipping the scales at 1,309 pounds. Since then, the Rochester Fair record has climbed to over 1,300 and is held by Bruce Whittier from Central New Hampshire.

Watson, like many local growers of giant pumpkins, belongs to several organizations — in his case, the NH Giant Pumpkins Growers Association, the New England Giant Pumpkins Growers Association and the Southern New England Giant Pumpkins Growers Association.

“A Southern New England club member currently holds the world record,” said Watson. “Ron Wallace had a pumpkin weighing 2,009 pounds last year.”

Watson obtained one of the seeds from this world record holder and was in high hopes of a monster himself, until the July weather put paid to that hope.

It is a hobby that can be fraught with disappointment. This year, said Watson, a grower in Sweden produced a pumpkin weighing an incredible 2,328 pounds, but it had a hole in the bottom, and under the Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth rules, it was not able to become an official record.

Still, there is always next year, and Watson, like other giant pumpkin growers is already preparing his soil for 2014.

“I have planted two cover crops. First buckwheat, and when that was turned over, mustard,” he said, explaining that once the mustard crop is turned over it produces mustard gas in the soil which kills the nematodes that parasitically feed on the pumpkin roots.

He takes success or failure in his stride, and notes that, on the happy side, he is having a great year as an apple grower. He even has a variety in his orchard that he developed himself. It is named Hiram’s Apple.